Think it’s fantasy? Think again! With the .gov now in charge of our health care, and able to fine tax us for doing and for not doing anything, this latest study is the final knock that swings the door wide open.

A lack of exercise is now causing as many deaths as smoking across the world, a study suggests.

The report, published in the Lancet to coincide with the build-up to the Olympics, estimates that about a third of adults are not doing enough physical activity, causing 5.3m deaths a year.

That equates to about one in 10 deaths from diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and breast and colon cancer.

Researchers said the problem was now so bad it should be treated as a pandemic.

With the .gov running health care, and managing responsibility for the costs, how long do you think it will take for daily exercise to become mandatory, with a fine an increased tax burden for those who fail to comply?

Those who value freedom understand that Obamacare must be repealed, today. Unfortunately, I have little confidence that it will ever actually happen. We are well into the “panem et circenses” phase of our Republic, and I fear its decay and eventual collapse has become inevitable.

[T]here are more officially unemployed people in the United States (13.9 million, though if you count those who have given up looking it’s nearly twice that) than the total individual populations of 46 out of 50 U.S. states.

Or, if you prefer: There are more offically unemployed Americans than the combined population of Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, Alaska, South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, Idaho and the District of Columbia.

It must be Bush’s fault, or the Republicans’, or the TEA party, or something.

Democrats: Republicans are evil, and these cuts are going to kill Granny.

Republicans: These cuts are awesome. We totally won!

Tea Party: Umm…these cuts don’t amount to much more than a rounding errror. $100b a year? And most of the cuts don’t come until like 8 years from now? If those were binding, wouldn’t the current budget be the one Republicans came up with in 2003?

S&P: Yeah, remember how we said you had to be serious about budget cuts? DOWNGRADE

The cuts* are a joke. Actually, they’re not a joke – they’re a scam to trick the general population into voting [$PARTY].

* Which aren’t actually cuts in spending. They are simply a promise** to increase spending less than was projected with current growth rates.

** It’s not really a promise, either, because it doesn’t actually bind future sessions of Congress to actually make those so-called cuts. Just for example, say the deal says “The 2013 budget will increase by $299 billion instead of the expected $300 billion.” When Congress creates the 2013 budget next year, they could actually make it $310 billion. To put it simply, Congress can simply counter this year’s vote on any subject with another vote next year. This holds true for any bill, including budgets.

If I were to act like the government, I would get a bunch of credit cards to pay my mortgage, and more credit cards to pay the credit card bills, and other credit cards to pay the new credit card bills, and a new mortgage to pay all those credit card bills, which would put me at the point the .gov is at right now.

What the .gov wants to do now is the equivalent of me deciding how big a raise I want to demand from my boss while figuring out how big a second mortgage I want to get to pay my first (new) mortgage payments and the credit card bills from where I used them after paying them off with the new home-loan to buy the big-screen 3D HDTV, surround sound system, Blue-Ray 3D DVD player, X-box, PS3, laptop computer, desktop computer, netbook, and Android tablet.

Oh, and I’m going to cut back on how often I eat out, because money is tight and I really can’t afford to do that as much anymore.

Sadly, when you translate that scenario to the current .gov situation, most people don’t seem to get it.

Obama and the Democrats want to get a new MasterCard to pay the monthly Visa bill – so they can continue to live high on the hog.

The Republicans want to cut down on spending for things like cable TV, fancy dinners, and new cars — use the money thus saved to start paying back the gargantuan Visa charges we’ve accumulated.

I would also add: Obama and the Democrats also want to demand that the boss give them a raise so that they don’t have to put quite as much of the payment for the new 65″ flat screen 3D HDTV on the new MasterCard. But since we have hit the credit limit on the Visa, they can’t pay for that TV they promised that we don’t want unless they get the MasterCard first. And don’t forget the 3D DVD player that it needs to do what they promised us.

To be fair, though, they are willing to cut down on the fancy dinners.

As Mike concluded:

Now, which option sounds like the responsible thing to do? What’s so hard to understand?

A comment on this Reuters article at Yahoo! News on the debate over whether Congress should raise the debt limit really caught my attention this morning. I don’t see a way to link directly to the comment, or I would do that as well. Commenter Virgin Soldier seems to really get it. I present his insight here without further comment.

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The president does.

You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don’t write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don’t set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don’t control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason.. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party. What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall.. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits.. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Boehner, he is the leader of the majority party. He and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts — of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can’t think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red ..

If the Army &Marines are in IRAQ , it’s because they want them in IRAQ

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it’s because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems..

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation,” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Back in March, the president of the New York Federal Reserve, William Dudley, was trying to explain to the citizens of Queens, N.Y., why they had no cause to worry about inflation. Dudley, a former chief economist at Goldman Sachs, put it this way: “Today you can buy an iPad 2 that costs the same as an iPad 1 that is twice as powerful. You have to look at the prices of all things.” Quick as a flash came a voice from the audience: “I can’t eat an iPad.”

[…]

To ordinary Americans, however, it’s not the online price of an iPad that matters; it’s prices of food on the shelf and gasoline at the pump. These, after all, are the costs they encounter most frequently. And with average gas prices hitting $3.88 a gallon last week, filling up is now twice as painful as when President Obama took office.

More importantly, the prices of food and gas are the costs ordinary Americans can’t avoid. With rare exception, no one has to buy an iPad – it’s a luxury item. Food and gas are necessities, that most Americans simply cannot do without and must buy for themselves.

Go read the whole thing. It hits on several points many of us in the blogosphere have been saying for a while now.

The Four Rules of Gun Safety

1. The Gun is ALWAYS loaded.
2. Never point the gun at anything you do not want to destroy or kill.
3. Keep your finger away from the trigger until you are ready to fire.
4. Be sure of your target, what is near your target, and what is BEHIND your target.

The Five Rules of Concealed Carry

1. Your concealed handgun is for protection of life only.
2. Know exactly when you can use your gun.
3. If you can run away -- RUN!
4. Display your gun, be prepared to go to jail.
5. Don't let your emotions get the best of you.

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